Teaching in an age of population replacement conspiracies: the Great Replacement Theory as an affective technology and its educational implications

Educational research on conspiracy theories remains limited, with existing interventions emphasising epistemic approaches. This paper argues that the Great Replacement Theory (GRT) – one of the most influential contemporary population replacement conspiracy theories – can be understood as an affective technology that organises emotions, identities, and political attachments. Drawing on affect theory, the analysis examines how GRT takes up anxieties surrounding demographic change, migration, race, gender, and belonging and attaches them to narratives of threat and collective victimhood. The paper then considers the educational implications of this analysis, developing critical affective engagement as a complement to epistemic critique. It argues for carefully structured and context-sensitive pedagogical approaches that enable students to examine both the evidential status of conspiratorial claims and the affective and political processes through which they become compelling, while remaining attentive to the ethical risks involved in introducing and examining harmful conspiratorial narratives.